1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to ensuring that a database and its description are synchronized. This invention also relates to taking responsive action in the event that a database and its description are no longer synchronized.
2. Description of the Related Art
IBM's Information Management System (IMS) is a widely used database management system. IMS “implemented the hierarchical model tree structure to organize the collection of records in a one-to-many entity-relationship data model.” K. R. Blackman, IMS Celebrates Thirty Years as an IBM Product, IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 37, No. 4, 596 (1998). Today, a large percentage of the top worldwide companies in the areas of manufacturing, finance, banking, retailing, aerospace, communications, government, insurance, high technology, and health care use IMS to run their day-to-day database operations. Id. at 597.
“The IMS database (DB) function provides a full-function resource manager and a fast path resource manager for hierarchical database management . . . . The data managed by IMS are organized in hierarchical database records. A database record is composed of segments, a segment being the smallest piece of information that IMS can store. A segment contains fields that are the smallest pieces of data an application program can manipulate. A field is identified as a unique key field that can be used to navigate the database to find a specific segment. The hierarchical structure of the segments establishes the structure of the database record. A root segment identifies a database record, and a database record cannot exist without a root segment. Dependent segments are the pieces of data that complete the rest of a database record. The IMS DB full-function resource manager provides sequential access, indexed sequential access, and direct access for database processing. The fast path DB resource manager provides the direct method for processing data by using direct access pointers to the segments.” Id. at 597-98. An OS dataset is a physical device on which an IMS database is stored.
A segment consists of two components: (1) prefix; and (2) data. The prefix portion of a segment contains information used by IMS to manage segments within a database, whereas the data portion of a segment contains the user's data.
“The fundamental architecture of IMS consists of a control region, a DLI secondary address space (DLISAS), a DBRC address space, an IRLM address space, and one or more dependent regions. The control region is the execution environment for the IMS system software, the control blocks, and storage pools required for managing communication access and application program scheduling. The control region also contains the fast path system software for managing access to fast path databases. This isolates the IMS system functions from the customer's application programs to maintain the integrity of the IMS system. The DLISAS execution environment contains the IMS DB full-function system software, control blocks, and storage pools for managing access to the full-function databases. The dependent regions provide the execution environments for the application programs to process transactions.” Id. at 599.
Average IMS databases are increasing in size, resulting in the need for database capacity to be increased while, at the same time, database availability and performance is maintained or enhanced. Various solutions to this requirement have been developed. For example, Neon Systems, Inc. developed the Partitioned Database Facility (PDF™) product which has used a vertical database partitioning scheme to increase the VSAM capacity limit from 4 GB to 128 GB and the OSAM capacity limit from 8 GB to 256 GB, for IMS full function databases. The PDF has also enabled database reorganizations or other maintenance tasks to run concurrently, in parallel. In addition, the PDF product improved database response times versus non-partitioned databases. PDF was an enhancement to IMS versions that did not allow for such a database partitioning scheme. IMS Version 7.1 integrates a related partitioning scheme into the IMS product.
Despite improvements in database capacity, availability and performance, further improvement is needed. For example, the partitioning schemes discussed above encourage the retention of more data, which can degrade performance, and increase the number of datasets to be managed. Furthermore, these partitioning schemes require all the database data to be stored in more expensive direct access storage devices (DASDs) and cannot exploit less expensive and more modern storage technologies, such as storage area networks, virtual tape systems, or network attached storage. Therefore, a need exists for a solution which accommodates database growth, without impacting performance, and which exploits newer storage technologies. In addition, a need exists for database space to be used more efficiently.
Because IMS databases become physically disorganized as the database is utilized and modified, they periodically need to be reorganized. The degree of disorganization is usually a function of the number of segments added, deleted, or updated. Segments being added or split as the result of an update tend to be physically located in a block other than their root segment or hierarchical predecessor. Subsequent retrieval of these new or split segments require additional DASD read requests, thus degrading the performance of the database. If a database is not reorganized, its performance degrades, at least in part because more I/O operations are required to retrieve data. Unloading and reloading a complete database is a common technique used to reorganize a database. However, this technique requires that the entire database be offline and unavailable during the period of time that that database is being reorganized.
When a database is reorganized, its primary and secondary indexes have to be updated as well. In fact, the process of updating indexes can be more time-consuming than reorganizing the database. In order to update these indexes, IMS has required that an indirect list, which is stored in a separate dataset, be built or completely updated before the indexes are updated. IBM has developed a system which does not require all the indexes to be updated, in a separate process, after a reorganization. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,881,379, which is incorporated herein by reference. Instead, a direct pointer is updated, by using an indirect pointer, only upon a first reference to the targeted data element that has moved during a reorganization. The IBM system still requires, however, that an indirect list be maintained. In IBM's system, this indirect list maintains both the old and new location of a target segment.
Techniques have been developed or proposed to reduce the percentage of data in the database that is reorganized at one time and/or the amount of time the database is offline and unavailable. However, such techniques generally require that all or portions of the database be offline and unavailable for a period of time which is still unacceptable and/or disruptive for many users.
BMC Software, Inc. (BMC) has marketed its Concurrent REORG Package as a near online database reorganization solution. According to BMC, its Concurrent REORG Package has allowed for complete database read access during a reorganization and for any updates to the database, which occur during a reorganization, to be captured and recovered. However, BMC's Concurrent REORG Package is a complex and expensive solution that has required a user to have the following prerequisite products:                Change Recording Facility™ for IMS        Unload Plus®/EP for IMS        Load Plus®/EP for IMS        Secondary Index Utility/EP        Fast REORG Facility/EP        Image Copy PlusFurthermore, BMC's Concurrent REORG solution has required that a shadow database be maintained during the reorganization process. In addition, once reorganization tasks are complete, a disruptive database outage would occur to allow updates, which were made during reorganization, to be applied to the database. Operator intervention is required to initiate the process of applying the updates.        
Therefore, a need exists for a less complex and less expensive solution that enables an online, or near online, reorganization. In other words, a need exists for a less complex and less expensive reorganization solution in which complete read/write access to database data is maintained except for minimum portions of data which may be inaccessible only for brief, non-disruptive periods of time. A need also exists for an online, or near online, reorganization which does not require the creation of a shadow database, does not require a database outage at the conclusion of the reorganization, and does not require operator intervention to complete the process. Furthermore, a need exists for a reorganization solution that eliminates the need to correct or rebuild primary indexes, and which facilitates secondary indexes to be corrected more quickly and efficiently, with less effort, and without the need for using and maintaining an additional dataset with an up-to-date indirect list.
Furthermore, a need exists for a unit of work (UOW) methodology, which has only been available for Fast Path databases, to be available for full function HDAM and HIDAM databases. In addition, a need exists in IMS full function databases for allowing user-controlled placement of data.
In addition to the foregoing, a need exists for allowing the prefix and data components of “fixed” length segments to be split at load time. IMS has only allowed the prefix and data components of “variable” length segments to be split when the “variable” length segment is increased in length after database load time. Furthermore, IMS has required that the split components be stored in the same dataset. Therefore, a further need exists for allowing split prefix and data components to be stored in separate datasets, and for allowing user data to be stored in a type of storage device which is different from a DASD. A need also exists for reducing or eliminating the problem of data being stored in a DASD in a fragmented manner.
In addition, a need exists in IMS databases for ensuring that the database definition or description is synchronized with the actual database data. In IMS, the database description, called the data management block (DMB), is maintained in one or more datasets, which are different from the database dataset(s). A database description could be changed in such a way that it is different from or no longer synchronized with the actual database. In such circumstances, the database may malfunction during use. Therefore, a need exists for ensuring that this condition does not occur and/or the user is alerted to the problem.